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ISAAC FUNK 

The Farmer and Legislator 






ISAAC FUNK 

The Farmer and Legislator 



AN ADDRESS 

BY 

THOMAS C. KERRICK 



AT 

ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY 

Wednesday, January 22 

1913 



.R|7 



EXERCISES ATTENDING THE ADMISSION OF THE NAME OF 

ISAAC FUNK 

TO THE ILLINOIS FARMERS' HALL OF FAME 

On the Afternoon of Wednesday, January Twenty-second, One Thousand 
Nine Hundred and Thirteen, at Two O'clock, in the 

MEMORIAL HALL, COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 



MUSIC 

INVOCATION- 



REV. JOHN ANDREW HOLMES 



OPENING REMARKS— By the President of the Commission Illinois 

Farmers' Hall of Fame 

HON. A. P. GROUT 

ADDRESS OF WELCOME— 

DR. EUGENE DAVENPORT 
Dean College of Agriculture, University of Illinois 

RESPONSE- 
DP. J. T. MONTGOMERY 
President Illinois State Board of Agriculture 

ADDRESS Isaac Funk, The Farmer and Legislator 
HON. THOMAS C. KERRICK 

THE UNVEILING OF THE PORTRAIT OF ISAAC FUNK 

By Miss Elizabeth Funk, the Great Grand-Daughter 

TENDER OF PORTRAIT OF ISAAC FUNK TO THE UNIVERSITY 
OF ILLINOIS 

By His Son, Hon. LaFayette Funk, Ex-President Illinois State Board of Agriculture 

RECEIPT OF THE PORTRAIT ON THE PART OF THE 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

By DR. EDMUND J. JAMES, President 

BENEDICTION- 
REV. JOHN ANDREW HOLMES 






Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

Isaac Funk was born November 17, 1797, on a fami in 
Clark county, Kentucky. He died, after a brief illness, in 
Bloomington, Illinois, January 29th, 1865. He lies buried in 
Funk's Grove Cemetery, Funks Grove township, McLean 
county, Illinois, near the same still running- stream, and in 
the heart of the same beautiful forest which captivated his 
eye, when as a young, strong man, full of hope, ambition and 
energy, he came to Illinois, in quest of a home and fortune. 

By his side, and in the same grave, lie the remains of his 
faithful wife, Cassandra, who survived him scarcely four 
hours, and of whom it has been written by one of her grand- 
daughters, in a most beautiful biographical tribute: "You all 
know how she died. Not because she was ill, or suffering, or 
very old ; but because that other one, with whom and for 
whom she had lived so long, had gone before, and it was 
easier to close tired eyes and follow him than to face life 
without him." * * * "A beautiful ending to a life so un- 
selfish and devoted for others as was hers." 

Isaac Funk's grandfather, Adam Funk, born in Germany, 
emigrated to America, settling first in Pennsylvania about the 
middle of the eighteenth century. His father, whose name 
was also Adam, was reared in Virginia. His wife's name was 
Sarah Moore, and she also was of German descent. They had 
nine children, six sons and three daughters. 

The family removed to Kentucky about the year 1790. In 



i8o7 they removed to Fayette county, Ohio. Here Isaac Funk 
spent thirteen years of his hfe, arriving at the age of twenty- 
three years. He then went over into Virginia, and worked a 
year in the Ivenewa Salt Works, returned then to the Ohio 
home, and remained there twO' years more. While he lived in 
Ohio he worked most of the time on a farm, sometimes at 
home, and sometimes working out by the month. 

Towards the end of this time, together with his father and 
Absalom, an older brother, he did some trading in cattle, hogs 
and other live stock. About this time an unlucky business ven- 
ture put him in debt nearly two thousand dollars, a large sum 
for those days. This debt still hung over him when he came 
to Illinois in the spring of 1824, but, faithful then, as ever, 
in the discharge of all his obligations, he, as soon as he had 
earned the money with which to do it, returned to Ohio and 
paid this debt with interest. 

Mr. Funk had scant opportunity for the schooling that is 
obtained under school teachers. So- far as we know he only 
attended school parts of three winters, and not at all after 
he was thirteen years of age. But verily he must have made 
good use of his meagre school opportunities, and his out of 
school opportunities to acquire good book learning, for as a 
man he could write, he could reckon, and he could speak with 
a forcefulness, an accuracy and a real, if not polished, finish, 
impossible to many college graduates and men of reputed high 
scholarship. 

The program prepared for this occasion gives me as the 
subject of this address, "Isaac Funk, the Farmer and Legis- 
lator." Isaac Funk's achievement in either of these great 
fields of human endeavor would sufficiently entitle him^ to the 
high mark of honor which is being given him here today. T 



.5 

shall not attempt to define Honor and Fame other than to say 
that Isaac Funk, and such as he, have them because they de- 
serve them. 

We are not making Isaac Funk famous today, perhaps not 
even adding to his fame; we are merely recording a judgment 
previously arrived at in the Court of public opinion, composed 
of those who knew him and his works during his life on earth, 
and those who have known of him and his works during the 
nearly half century since his death. 

Isaac Funk was a pioneer. A pioneer is one who goes 
before, and opens, and leads, removes obstructions, and pre- 
pares the way for others coming after. Without true pioneers, 
men and women pioneers, the history of this world would be 
a tedious and tasteless thing. I cannot say, and shall not 
say, that self-interest was not the motive that caused Isaac 
Funk to come to Illinois. To so assert would only be to go 
counter to a fact in human nature which we all know is a 
fact, but I do say there is a wide difference between self- 
interest and selfish interest, and no act of Isaac Funk of which 
I have ever learned, was a selfish act. 

New comers, settling in his neighborhood, of course needed 
corn to feed their live stock until they could raise com for 
themselves. Sometimes they came to Funk, who always had 
corn, and asked him if he would sell them some corn. Funk 
would answer, and I imagine with a little assumed sternness, 
"I don't sell corn, I buy corn," and then would add, doubtless 
with a kindly twinkle in his naturallv rather fierce-looking 
black eyes, "Go to my cribs and take what corn you need, and 
when you raise enough com yourself, put back as much as you 
took out." 

In 1847 he donated a beautiful tract of land in the heart 



6 

of Funk's Grove for burial, school-house and church purposes. 
The conveyance, which was made in trust to the School Trus- 
tees of the township, recited, in substance, that such portion 
of the tract as was so needed, should be a burial place for the 
use of the inhabitants of Funk's Grove township, and such 
part as was so needed, should be used for school-house 
grounds, and such part as was so needed, should be used for 
church grounds, upon which grounds should be erected a 
Methodist church, but that people of all religious beliefs 
should be permitted to hold religious services in said church, 
when it did not conflict with its regularly appointed use by 
the Methodists. 

It is in this same burial place that Isaac Funk's mortal 
remains repose, together with those of many of his kindred, 
and other one time "inhabitants of Funk's Grove township." 

At the time of this conveyance Mr. Funk was not a mem- 
ber of any church, but in the following year he united with 
the Methodist church, and always gave and worked gener- 
ously for the support and furtherance of religious teaching. 

When Bloomington was little more than a village, he, to- 
gether with Peter Cartwright, David Davis, and other public- 
spirited and far-seeing men, petitioned the Legislature for the 
charter upon which the Illinois Wesleyan University is 
founded, and later on, in a single donation, he gave that in- 
stitution ten thousand dollars. I might multiply instances in 
proof of his broad-mindedness and open-heartedness, but these 
are typical, and for want of time must suffice here. 

Before coming to Illinois, Mr. Funk had learned to deal in 
live stock. He had learned that there were places in Illinois 
where he could probably pursue that business successfully, 
and so in 1824 he came to Illinois, and built his cabin on the 



eastern edge of the noble forest tract since known as Funk's 
Grove. About two years afterwards he wooed and wedded 
Cassandra Sharp, and brought her on horseback from her 
home in Peoria county to his cabin home. The courtship, I 
have been told, was short. It did not take Isaac long to know 
a good thing when he saw it. From this union dates Mr. 
Funk's remarkable career. Ten children came to them, nine 
sons and one daughter, the daughter coming last, and I have 
been credibly informed that the arrival of the daughter ap^ 
peared to afford Mr. Funk about as much delight as the ar- 
rival of the other nine combined. All of these ten children, 
except Adam, the second born, who died in early manhood, 
lived beyond middle life, most of them to or beyond the al- 
lotted span of life. Three, Jacob, Lafayette and Absalom, are 
still living, and are here with us today. Three of the sons 
served in the Civil War. Three of them, and one grandson, 
have serA^ed in the upper or lower houses of our State Legis- 
lature. One served in Congress, after having served his home 
city seven terms as its Mayor. Among them they have, from 
time to time, been selected by their fellow citizens to render 
public service, in almost all capacities, in township, county, 
district and state, in all which capacities the ser^nce doubtless 
entailed financial loss rather than gain, and through all this 
public sendee they have come without a taint or smirch, or 
even a whispered suspicion, against their official integrity. 
They have been sought after throughout all their business 
lives to hold and perform the oftentimes onerous and some- 
times thankless duties of trust positions. In these positions 
great sums of money belonging to others have been in their 
control, but their accounting for such funds has never been 
questioned, and no beneficiary ever failed to receive what was 
his due under such trusts. 



8 

I shall quote here, for a while, almost verbatim, from an 
address delivered by my brother, the late Leonidas H. Ker- 
rick, the son-in-law of Isaac Funk, upon the "Life and Char- 
acter of Hon. Isaac Funk," delivered September 21st, 1899, 
at a celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the settle- 
ment of Funk's Grove. 

"There were then (speaking of the date of the marriage 
of Isaac Funk and Cassandra Sharp) less than thirty families 
in the territory now included in the bounds of McLean county. 
Of course there was not much farm stock of any kind. 

"The Funks began to farm a little with such implements 
as they could get or make, and to buy what stock there was 
for sale within their reach. They bought cattle, hogs, sheep, 
horses and mules, and drove them to market wherever a mar- 
ket could be found. The brothers Isaac and Absalom were 
equal partners in all these transactions. They went to Sanga- 
mon county, and other settlements, as they gained a little 
headway in business, and bought cattle and brought them to 
the home place; these they would graze for a season, or per- 
haps feed awhile, according to their condition, and then find 
a market for them. Their first markets were Peoria and 
Galena, — later Chicago. Sometimes they took droves of cat- 
tle into Ohio, finding markets for them there. 

"These first transactions were small, of necessity, but as 
settlements increased they kept equal pace, widening the field 
of their operations. They were alert, knew their business, 
dealt fairly with everybody, worked very hard, and as nearly 
as I can find out, they gained a pretty complete monopoly of 
the stock buying business in all this region ; and they made 
money as they deserved to do. 

"As early as 1835, Chicago became their principal market. 
They were sending so much stock there that it was thought 
best for one of the brothers to locate in Chicago, in order to 
take better care of the business at that end of the line. Isaac 
now had five small children; Absalom was still a bachelor, 
and ten years the elder. These circumstances suited Absalom 
better for locating and taking the work in Chicago, which he 
did, and Isaac remained on the farm. 

"The different characteristics of the men also suited to 
this division of the work. If Isaac was tlie stronger man of 



the two, being possessed of somewhat more energy and cour- 
age, Absalom was cast in a little smoother mold, more diplo- 
matic, more suave. For about five years longer the brothers 
remained in partnership, prosecuting their business with great 
tact and energy. From first to last of the partnership the 
brothers worked in perfect harmony, and there was always 
mutual good-will. The memory of "Uncle Absalom" is dear 
to the Funk family, and his name is always mentioned with 
profound respect. 

"The partnership was dissolved in the year 1841. Isaac 
bought Absalom's share in the lands they had acquired to- 
gether, and continued buying, feeding and marketing cattle, 
hogs and other stock as before. Instead of curtailing the busi- 
ness, he still increased it. His land holdings were now larger, 
more labor was available, and he was farming and feeding 
more extensively. He bought cattle far and near, sometimes 
going to other states for them. He fed all his own crops to 
stock, as well as the grain share which he received from his 
tenants, frequently buying the share of his tenants also, and 
feeding it. He put cattle out with other farmers to haAe them 
fed, paying so much a pound for the gain, and he bought the 
crops of still others, and had them fed out on fanns where 
they were raised. It was a common practice for him to sell 
his cattle, or contract them for a year forward, to parties in 
Chicago, at a stipulated price per hundred weight, dressed ; 
then he would buy and graze and feed the cattle to fill these 
contracts. He went to Chicago, al>out one hundred and forty 
miles from his home place, sometimes with as many as 1500 
cattle in his drove; sometimes as many as 1000 hogs. One 
winter, together with his brother Jesse, he drove more than 
6000 hogs to Chicago. To move these large droves of stock 
safely and get them in market in good condition, was no 
boy's play. It required a high degree of skill, and a most ac- 
curate and practical knowledge of the business, besides great 
physical strength and courage and endurance. When one of 
the larger herds of cattle was to be moved to market, a sec- 
tion of it, say two or three hundred, would be started, with 
its proper complement of men attending. Next day another 
section would be mobilized and started on the road, and so on 
until all the herd was moving. These sections, or smaller 
droves, were kept about a day's march apart. 

"It will be readilv seen that in this manner the herd could 



10 

be moved with greater safety and expedition than in a single 
great drove. About fourteen days were required for a bunch 
of cattle to travel to Chicago, and about three weeks from the 
time the first were started out, the last drove, or section, would 
get in. 

"Heavy rains, thunder storms, high water, sleet and snow 
storms were frequent incidents of these trips. Thunderstorms 
by night terrified the cattle in their new surroundings. It 
was often necessary for the herdsmen to remain in their sad- 
dles all night during the prevalence of a severe storm, in order 
to prevent a stampede of the cattle, or to round them up and 
get tliem in hand again, in case a stampede occurred. This 
kind of work called for the greatest courage, and the most 
daring equestrianship, as well as great physical endurance. 

"For the most part, corrals were found for the cattle, and 
shelter for the men of nights, but frequently all were obliged 
to camp in the open prairie. At such times the men had 
nothing but the ground for a bed, a saddle or a bag for a pil- 
low, a great-coat or blanket for cover, and the starry sky or 
lowering clouds for a roof. 

"Mr. Funk nearly always went with his cattle, and took 
his share, or more than his share, of the hardest, the most 
disagreeable and the most dangerous parts of the work. 

"Slaughtering facilities at Chicago were limited in those 
days, and these separate droves or sections of the herd were 
sized as nearly as practicable to a day's capacity of the slaugh- 
ter house, to which the cattle were going. In this way each 
drove could be immediately slaughtered on its arrival, thereby 
preventing expensive delay and congestion of stock at Chi- 
cago. When slaughtered, each beef was weighed separately, 
in quarters, on platform scales. 

"To George, the eldest son, was allotted the business, for 
several years, of taking these weights. The work would begin 
about four o'clock in the morning, and continue day after day 
until late at night. The whole time required to move and 
slaughter one of these larger herds of cattle, straighten up 
all the business and get home, was from four to five weeks. 

"Droves of hogs were moved in about the same manner, 
except that it was necessary to have a sort of traveling slaugh- 
ter camp along with the hog droves. A separate gang of men 
was needed to take charge of such heavier and fatter hogs 
as gave out on the w^ay. Sometimes these hogs would be 



11 

loaded in wagons and sent forward to Chicago, the wagons 
returning and loading again, if necessary. Sometimes m cold- 
est weather a good many would be slaughtered en route, and 
sent forward dressed. 

When his sons were old enough they shared with their 
father the labors and hardships, as well as much responsi- 
bility, of his great business ; but for many years it all rested 
on his shoulders alone. I have no doubt he often saw all he 
was worth, and a good deal more, on foot moving between 
Funk's Grove and Chicago. He nearly always had big money 
obligations maturing. 

"When we consider the exigencies of such a situation, to- 
gether with the uncertainties and risks of such a business as 
his, we may know that broad shoulders and a stout heart were 
needed to bear up under it all ; but he had them, if ever a man 
had." 

I almost regret that at this point I end the quotation. 
There are so many things said in the address from which I 
have quoted that are better said than I can say them. 

Isaac Funk made a market for stockmen where there was 
none of stability before. He knew what the stock was worth, 
and stockmen knew that he did, and that he would pay what 
it was worth, — either when he came to them or when they 
came to him to negotiate about a sale. 

In many instances men who had not previously communi- 
cated with Mr. Funk drove their stock long distances to his 
place, and without parley, and with full confidence in his 
word, sold it to him at such price as he told them he could 
afford to give. 

At his death he owned, in round numbers, twenty-five thou- 
sand acres of as good land as was ever owned in a single com- 
pact tract by any one man. This land he had bought and 
paid for, and he had earned it. His acquiring it had hurt no 
other man. It helped hundreds of other men. There are 
scores of well-to-do land owners in McLean and adjoining 



12 

counties who are proud to relate that they got their start by 
working for Isaac Funk, either as hired men or tenants. 

We hear and read much nowadays about the "unearned 
increment" in farm lands. There may be somew'here cases 
of such unearned increment, but I do not believe they are 
nearly so numerous as some suppose. I am as certain as I 
am certain about anything, that there is not an acre of the 
land that Isaac Funk died possessed of that has even a trace 
of so-called unearned increment on it, or in it. 

Neither did Isaac Funk nor his descendants rob the soil. 
I had personal charge, forty years ago, for a period of four 
years of more than two thousand acres of it. I was familiar 
with its product then, and I think I know approximately what 
it produces now, and I know that it now produces, one year 
with another, as much as, or more, than it did then. 

I have said not a tithe of what I think should be said about 
Isaac Funk as a farmer, but time will not permit more to be 
said now. " -f ; 

Isaac Funk was a patriot of the loftiest type. He loved 
his country. He zealously supported and upheld its institu- 
tions and interests. He was a defender of liberty, civil or 
religious. He w^as with heart and soul and purse for the 
presentation of the Union in the sixties. When the 94th regi- 
ment of Illinois volunteers, about to depart from Bloomington, 
was loaded into a train of suffocatingly hot and almost airless 
box cars, he bought a box of hatchets and a bunch of hand- 
saws and distributed them among the soldiers, with directions 
to cut as many holes in the sides of the cars as they thought 
would give proper ventilation, and leave him to pay the rail- 
road for the damage done. 

The good Union women of Bloomington were making a 



13 

flag to present to this regiment before its departure, and Isaac 
Funk was to make the presentation speech. For some reason 
the ladies did not get the flag finished in time. But when it 
was finished Funk took it over into Missouri to where the 
regiment was temporarily encamped. On the stand beside 
William H. Orme, the colonel of the regiment, Mr. Funk, 
with the flag in one hand, and looking out over the thousand 
boys in blue, began his speech, or tried to, but he got no 
farther than to turn appealingly to Orme and say, "Orme, 
you make the speech and give this flag to the boys. I can't 
do it. They look to me like they were my own children." 
Orme, with better control of his emotions, made the speech 
and presented the flag. 

In politics, Mr. Funk was a Whig, until the Republican 
party was formed, when he joined that party. Like many 
other Republicans, he, for a while, thought the Abolitionists 
were too radical; that their teachings were impractical, and 
perhaps dangerous to the country. But he was open-minded, 
and at the request of an Abolitionist friend he went to hear 
Owen Lovejoy speak. He listened attenti\'ely to every word 
Lovejoy uttered. After the speech his friend asked him what 
he thought of it. He answered, "If that is Abolitionism, I 
am an Abolitionist," and he was, and had been all the time, 
I suppose, without knowing it, for, from his youth up he had 
held an abiding hatred for human slavery. 

He was an intimate acquaintance and friend of Abraham 
Lincoln. Lincoln visited at his home, and ate at his table. 
He admired and loved Lincoln. He was a Lincoln delegate 
to the historic Chicago convention that nominated Lincoln for 
the presidency in i860. Judge David Davis was the com- 
mander-in-chief of the Lincoln forces in that memorable con- 



14 

test. Among his ablest and most trusted generals and field 
marshals were Isaac Funk, Leonard Swett, Jesse K. Dubois, 
and Jesse W. Fell, of Illinois. Soon after the Lincoln forces 
had overthrown and humbled the erstwhile scoffing and boast- 
ful forces of the mighty Seward, and had carried away the 
nomination upon their victorious spears, Davis and Funk met 
in Davis' bedroom at the hotel. Davis was half sitting, half 
reclining on the bedside. As Funk approached him he sprang 
up, and with his mighty hand grabbing Funk's equally big 
one, exclaimed, "Well, Ike we won, but Lordee how tired I 
am!", and thereupon flung his ponderous frame full length 
upon the bed, and proceeded to "rest up." It is not related 
that Funk said he was some tired himself. Indeed I have it 
from one of his sons that he never, at any time or place, 
heard his father say he was tired, and he thinks it unlikely 
that anybody else ever did. 

When Mr. Funk's candidate had won the nomination, he 
did not shed his Lincoln fighting clothes and leave all the 
work of electing his man to others. Quite the contrary. I did 
not reside in Illinois then, and cannot speak as an eye-witness, 
but from hearsay from people whose veracity I have never 
heard questioned, I know that Mr. Funk forthwith threw him- 
self into the campaign with a velocity and momentum quite 
similar to that of a high-class cyclone, and from that sort of 
a beginning "worked up" until the polls closed in November 
and his man was elected. 

One incident typical of his style as a campaign enthusiasm 
maker was when he coupled together the running gears of a 
half dozen or so of farm wagons, built a wide, strong plat- 
form over all, hitched up to this mammoth vehicle thirty-four 
yoke of oxen, one yoke for each state then in the Union, 



15 

loaded on the platform a goodly number of big- rail-length 
logs, plenty of mauls, wedges, gluts, axes, and other imple- 
ments of rail-splitting outfits, manned the craft with a husky 
bunch of sure-enough rail splitters, swung the gaily decorated 
outfit over the ten or eleven miles Xo the big Bloomington Re- 
publican rally, and with his expert rail-splitters making real 
rails, in the highest style of that really manly art, swung that 
long stretch of oxen here and there, round about through the 
principal streets of Bloomington, thronged with a shouting, 
cheering mass; while high above the noise and tumult of it all, 
his stentorian shouts of command and encouragement, the 
rifle-like cracking of his mighty whip, both of which had a 
meaning to these educated oxen, were heard, understood and 
obeyed by them as placidly and contentedly as though their 
master were merely calling them to their feeding place, some 
quiet evening down on the farm. 

In 1840 the Whig party elected Mr. Funk to the lower 
house of our State Legislature. In 1862 the Republican party 
elected him to serve out the unexpired senatorial term of gal- 
lant Dick Oglesby, who resigned to go into the war. It was 
not because of Funk's personal wish or ambition that he took 
Oglesby 's place in the State Senate. It was because a grand 
coterie of Illinois statesman patriots who were striving might- 
ily to help hold up the hands of War Governor Yates and 
Abraham Lincoln, in order to carry the war to a successful 
conclusion, knew that Isaac Funk was the man needed in that 
place. At the expiration of that temi they elected him for the 
ensuing full term. After Fort Sumter was fired upon. Funk, 
like Douglas, believed there were only two parties in this 
nation, patriots and traitors. But he was too broad-minded 
to think that all the patriots came from the Republican party. 



16 

He knew there were millions of men of the Democratic faith 
who were as loyal, as patriotic, and as zealous for the preser- 
vation of the Union as he. He knew also that a paltering, 
faltering, hesitating, doubting, week-kneed Unionist was lit- 
tle, if any, better than an avowed disunionist. 

In the Illinois Senate in February, 1863, a bill to appro- 
priate funds for the Sanitary Commission was pending. 
Recent war reverses had so encouraged the arrogant op- 
ponents of the war, and discouraged some half-hearted Un- 
ionists, that it seemed that the measure would be defeated. 
Funk sensed that the defeat of that measure would probably 
mean the defeat of similar measures in other states, and might 
lead to a general breaking down of all effort to save the 
Union. One night, when the opponents of the bill seemed to 
have it all their own way. Funk could stand it no longer. He 
sprang from his seat, and with a voice and an action that 
compelled everybody to listen, he made a speech. I will here 
recite the speech as the reporters took it. You must imagine, 
if you can, the occasion, and the action of the speaker. It is 
beyond my power, or that of any man, to reproduce those 
here. I can only give it as the reporters took it — 

"Mr. Speaker: I can sit in my seat no longer and see 
such boys' play go on. These men are trifling with the best 
interests of the country. They should have ape's ears to set 
off their heads, as they are secessionists and traitors at heart. 

"I say that there are traitors and secessionists at heart in 
this senate. Their actions prove it. Their gibes and laughter 
and cheers here nightly, when their speakers get up in this 
hall and denounce the war and administration, prove it. 

*'I can sit here no longer and not tell these traitors what 
I think of them. And while so telling them, I am responsible 
for what I say. I stand upon my own bottom. I am ready 
to meet any man on this floor, in any manner, from a pin's 
point to the mouth of a cannon on this charge against these 



17 

traitors. (Tremendous applause from the g-alleries.) I am 
an old man of sixty-five. I came to Illinois a poor boy. I 
have made a little something' for myself and family. I pay 
$3,000 a year in taxes. Am willing" to pay $6,000, aye $12,000 ; 
(great cheering, the old gentleman bringing down his fist 
upon his desk with a blow that would knock down a bullock 
and causing the inkstand tO' bound half a dozen inches in the 
air,) aye, I am willing to pay my whole fortune, and then 
give my life to save my country from these traitors who are 
seeking to destroy it. (Tremendous cheers and applause which 
the speaker could not quiet. ) 

"Mr. Speaker, you must please excuse me. I could not 
sit any longer in my seat and calmly listen to these traitors. 
My heart, that feels for my poor country, would not let me. 
My heart, that cries out for the lives of our brave volunteers 
in the field, that these traitors at home are destroying by the 
thousands, would not let me. My heart, that bleeds for the 
widows and orphans at home, would not let me. Yet these 
villains and traitors and secessionists in this Senate (striking 
his clenched fist on the desk with a blow that made the house 
ring again), are killing my neighbors' boys, now fighting in 
the field. 

"I dare to tell this to these traitors, to their faces, and that 
I am responsible for what I say tO' one or all of them. (Cheers.) 
Let them come on, right here. I am sixty-five years old and 
I have made up my mind to risk my life right here, on this 
floor, for my country. 

"These men sneered at Colonel Mack, a day or two ago. 
He is a little man ; but I am a large man. I am ready to meet 
any of them in place of Colonel Mack. I am large enough 
for them and hold myself ready for them now and at any 
time. (Cheers from the galleries.) 

"Mr. Speaker, these traitors on this floor should be pro- 
vided with hempen collars. They deserve them. They deserve 
— they deserve hanging, I say. (Raising his voice and vio- 
lently striking the desk.) The country would be better off to 
string them up. I go for hanging them, and T dare tell them 
so, right here, to their traitors' faces. Traitors should be 
hung. It would be the salvation of the country to hang them. 
For that reason I would rejoice at it. (Tremendous cheer- 
ing.) 

"Mr. Speaker, I beg the pardon of the gentlemen in the 



18 

Senate who are not traitors, but true, loyal men, for what I 
have said. I only intend it and mean it for secessionists at 
heart. They are here in this Senate. I see them joke and 
smirk and grin at a true Union man. But I defy them. I 
stand here ready for them and dare them to come on. (Great 
cheering. ) What man with the heart of a patriot could stand 
this treason any longer? I have stood it long enough. I will 
stand it no longer. (Cheers.) I denounce these men and their 
aiders and abettors as rank traitors and secessionists. Hell 
itself could not spew out a more traitorous crew than some of 
the men who disgrace this legislature, this state and this coun- 
try. For myself I protest and denounce their treasonable acts. 
I have voted against their measures, I will do so to the end. 
I will denounce them as long as God gives me breath, and I 
am ready to meet the traitors themselves here or anywhere, 
and fight them to the death. (Prolonged cheers and shouts.) 

"I said I paid $3,000 a year taxes. I do not say it to 
brag of it. It is my duty — yes, Mr. Speaker, my privilege to 
do it. But some of the traitors here, who are working night 
and day to get their miserable little bills and claims through 
the legislature, to take money out of the pockets of the people, 
are talking about high taxes. They are hvpocrites as well as 
traitors. I heard some of them talking about high taxes in 
this way who do not pay $5 to support the government. I 
denounce them as hypocrites as well as traitors. (Cheers.) 

"The reason that they pretend to be afraid of hig-h taxes 
is that they do not want to vote money for the relief of the 
soldiers. They want also to embarrass the government and 
stop the war. They want to aid the secessionists to conqueri 
our boys in the field. They care about taxes! They are 
picayune men anyhow^ They pay no taxes at all and never did, 
and never hope to, unless they can plunder the government. 
(Cheers.) This is an excuse of traitors. 

"Mr. Speaker, excuse me. I feel for my country in this, 
her hour of danger. I feel for her from the tips of my toes 
to the ends of my hair. That is the reason that I speak as I 
do. I cannot help it. I am bound to tell these men to their 
teeth what they are, and what the people, the true, loyal peo- 
ple, think of them. 

"Mr. Speaker, I have had my say. I am no speaker. This 
is the only speech I have made; and I dO' not know that it 
deserves to be called a speech. I could not sit here any longer 



19 

and see these scoundrels and traitors work out their selfish 
schemes to destroy the union. They have my sentiments. 
Let them one and all make the most of them. I am ready to 
back up all I say, and I repeat it, to meet these traitors in any 
manner they may choose, from a pin's point to the mouth of a 
cannon." 

Probably any Sophomore could point out faults of com- 
position and rhetoric in this speech, but it has been given to 
but few men to make so great a speech, considering the need 
for it, and how it satisfied that need. It not 'only saved the 
day in Illinois, but it put new hope and courage and vim into 
union loving people everywhere. It was an epoch-making 
speech. It is probably remembered by more of the older peo- 
ple in Illinois than any other speech made by any other Illi- 
noisan, excepting only some of Lincoln's. Things were going 
in the direction of destruction of the Union. This speech 
turned them about, in Illinois at least, and put them on the 
sure road to salvation of the Union. 

Only recently Ex-Governor Joseph W, Fifer told me that 
this speech soon after its delivery was read to his entire regi- 
ment, the 33d 111., assembled by its officers for that especial 
purpose and that within a few weeks after its publication it 
was doubtless read to, or by, practically every union soldier. 

Needless to say! it touched a chord that helped mightily 
to "swell the chorus of the Union." 

It is my belief that great as was Isaac Funk as a farmer, 
that one speech proved him to be even greater as a legislator. 



20 



The Illinois Farmers' Hall of Fame 



The members of the commission of the Illinois Farmers' Hall of 
Fame have selected seven men, to date, for places in this Hall, which is 
the first of its kind. These men represent the several lines of activity 
that have conduced largely to the success of the Illinois farmer, (i) The 
inventor of the Reaper — (2) the organizer and the active promoter of 
the Illinois State Fair and the early importer and successful breeder of 
pure bred live stock — (3) the originator of the idea of the National sys- 
tem of Land Grant Colleges, that led to the establishment of the State 
Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanic arts and later to the organization 
of the Agricultural Experiment Station — (4) A pioneer farmer w^ho at- 
tained to a marked degree of success in the cultivation of crops, the feed- 
ing and breeding of market stock and in setting the pace for the best 
known methods of farming and feeding of his day, and — (5) the leading 
spirit of his time in developing a large profitable and central market for 
live stock and creating a widely distributed home and foreign demand 
for animal products — (6) A very successful farmer and feeder, of early 
day, who led the way in the development of the agricultural and live 
stock industry of Illinois — (7) An inventor of a number of very useful 
agricultural implements, and for fifty years a leading manufacturer of 
farm machinery in Illinois. 

The first candidate admitted to the Illinois Farmers' Hall of Fame 
on December 15, 1909, was Cyrus Hall McCormick, inventor of the 
Reaper. 

The second candidate, the late James N. Brown, the first President 
of the Illinois State Fair, who did so much for the Agriculture of the 
State in connection with this great Exposition, and the early introduction 
from Great Britain of the various breeds of live stock, was given like 
honor on January 25, 191 1. 

Prof. Jonathan B. Turner, the father of the Agricultural Colleges and 
Experiment Stations, was likewise honored by the commission of the Illi- 
nois Farmers' Hall of Fame on June 15, 1912. the fiftieth anniversary of 
the establishment of such Colleges and Stations. 

The large farmer and feeder of early day, the late Isaac Funk, will 
be the candidate for admission on Januay 22, 1913. In the succeeding 
January, 1914, the late Philip D. Armour, the great packer and exporter 
of meat products, will be likewise honored. 

The purpose of the commission in charge of these exercises is not 
only to give historic permanence and value to the labors of these great 



21 

leaders, but by' example and instance to stimulate endeavor on the part 
of the younger men in order that this development so gloriously begun 
may proceed to its highest achievement. 

The Farmers' Hall of Fame will be at the College of Agriculture, 
University of Illinois, and each candidate, when admitted, will be repre- 
sented by a high class painting and a tablet reciting in brief his con- 
tribution to the evolution of Agriculture. 

Each of the names selected by the commission is to be installed into 
the Hall of Fame by separate and appropriate exercises to be varied ac- 
cording to the achievements of the individual. 

The Illinois Farmers' Hall of Fame is the result of a movement to 
record the services and commemorate the lives of the great leaders of the 
State in the development of Agriculture from a pioneer art to a civilized 
science on which the prosperity of all classes will ultimately depend. 

This is one of the most significant steps taken in this or any other 
country in the name of Agriculture. It is not only just a tribute to this 
class which has hitherto gone unrecognized, but it cannot but encourage 
further effort on the part of the ambitious and capable men in a field by 
no means yet exhausted. 

Its location at the College of Agriculture will not only be favorable 
tO' this end, but it will constitute one of the chief attractions and in- 
fluences of the institution. 

The monographs that will be issued in connection with the several 
names will constitute in themselves a history of Illinois and national Ag- 
riculture in such form as to attract both local and world wide attention, 
not only to the achievement of these men, but to the general cause of 
Agriculture, as well. 

The commission elected at the recent annual meeting of this organi- 
zation and authorized to complete arrangements for the admission of 
candidates to the Illinois Farmers' Hall of Fame includes the following: 

President Hon. A. P. Grout, a representative farmer residing at 
Winchester, the farmers' choice on the Board of Trustees, University of 
Illinois. 

Vice-President, Dr. Eugene Davenport, of Urbana, dean of the Agri- 
cultural College, University of Illinois. 

Secretary Col. Chas. F. Mills, Springfield, editor of The Farm Home 
and Secretary of the Illinois Department of Agriculture. 

Treasurer Dr. J. T. Montgomery, Charleston, President of the Illi- 
nois State Board of Agriculture. 



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